mP, I learned that Stephen has one hell of a windup but not much of a pitch! He took 50 verses to set up Acts 7:51-53, which is ostensibly about Jesus. So what was the purpose for reeling off the entire history of Israel, just to say, you killed the prophets and now you've killed the righteous one? Seems sort of weird to me.
Socrateswannabe
JoinedPosts by Socrateswannabe
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Acluetofindtheuser, I'm not sure I can agree to that, in Stephen's case anyway. "Lord Jesus, receive my oxygen or my ability to breathe"? Maybe I'm missing something.
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Thanks to all for your observations and clarifications.
Bobcat, that is an interesting take on this and I will try to absorb it.
Stillin, this verse was in our bible highlights for this week and no one ventured a comment on it. We have no one in our congregation who could or would do the kind of research that has been exhibited by those who have responded to this topic on this forum.
Never A JW, Yes, I have a bookmark to the Skeptic's Annotated Bible online and it is of great help. It seems to me as though the author of this publication has done his research. Maybe he's not 100% accurate, but he has helped me to see the absurdity of much of the bible and a lot of the humor in it that the all-too-serious JWs have missed. Of the limited resources that I have yet found, this is one of my favorites. I realize it is rudimentary compared to the scholarly works that others have recommended here, but hey, you gotta start somewhere!
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Cold Steel, this much I agree with you on:
"if you're going to understand the Bible you have to forget virtually everything you've been taught, read, or thought you understood. And you should begin by throwing away your New World Translation"
Prologos, you said:
"The timing of his resurrection is subject to the above mentioned good observations on Pauls writings, of which Stephen might have known little".
I agree that if there was a "Stephen", he might have known little of Paul's writings and his concept of a resurrection could easily have been different than Paul's, or different from Jesus' for that matter, since there is no indication that Stephen had direct contact with Jesus. But the JW religion is a belief based upon absolutes--the absolute accuracy of the bible, the fundamental perfectness of anything stated in scripture. The bible doesn't explain to us that Stephen had a wrong concept when he cried out for Jesus to accept his spirit, an obvious reference to an instant resurrection to Jesus in heaven, it just records his words which certainly seem to indicate that he believed that as his fate. The writer of Acts, in the very next verse, contradicts Steven's words by saying that he "fell asleep in death", but the writer (whoever he really was), makes no other comment. So the point of my debate is not whether Stephen was resurrected or not, to where, or when, but rather; how can the WTS reconcile this statement as being part of their divinely inspired, unerring holy bible, since it so obviously divurges from their accepted belief? Maybe someone has found a reference in the WT Library that addresses this and puts their WT spin on it, but I looked and can find nothing.
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Bobcat, thanks for the link to the toolbar. That looks very promising. And BOTR, thanks for explaining some of the evolution of this scholarly thought. I realize that even the experts change their minds or find new evidence, but at least I would hope that is realtively objective and that there is no hidden agenda in their theories, as we see so rampant in the WTS. I think also, such as the issue regarding the Q source, that if a preponderance of scholars think it so, then that is a pretty good indication that it might be accurate.
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Also, BOTR, that is an interesting possibility that you bring up that Jewish Christians and Greek or Greek-influenced Christians may have understood the so-called resurrection hope differently. I need to look into that more. Thanks!
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Bobcat and BOTR, thank you both for your comments and helpful suggestions. For a couple of years now I have used this forum and the search feature as a main source of information. I appreciate it when posters name the scholarly research from which their opinions were formed. It helps a lot. I stumbled on this site when googling a question about the viability of a vessel such as Noah's ark being seaworthy, and I have been hooked on on JWN ever since. Those posters on this forum that you mentioned, Bobcat, as great sources of information and scholarly research, have indeed helped me a great deal. I will investigate the suggestions that you and BOTR have offered, and hopefully this will help me on my quest for truth, or at least the closest I can come to truth, since I no longer believe it as an absolute. Thanks again!
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Thanks for the responses. Bobcat, you are one of several people on this forum who obviously have a great number of resources at your disposal and who know how to use them. I would like to learn more about the bible, its origins, how it was compiled, who really wrote it, the differences between the source texts, etc., which you, among others, seem to be very plugged into. My purpose may be different from some of you, in that I am firmly leaning toward the bible as being a work of man with many errors and contradictions. But I would like to either validate my skepticism or disprove it, based upon the best scholarly works available. Would you or any others on this forum recommend particular references or books that will help me? Basically, what did you read and what do you refer to in order to draw your conclusions?
It's sad that I don't know the answer to these questions, but as an "active" JW, I have been trained for years to only read WTS publications and the cherry picked quotes from dubious sources. Please help me to get some objectivity here, would you?
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
Bobcat, yes, I agree with you that Paul placed the resurrection of the worthies during Christ's presence, which the WTS places in the 20th century. But who forgot to tell Stephen?
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47
Did Stephen believe he would have to wait 2000 years for a resurrection?
by Socrateswannabe inin acts 7:59, the jews were casting stones at stephen and his last words were, "lord jesus, receive my spirit.".
the wts has contended that all of the ancients who died after jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which wt reference you are looking at).
and in fact, v. 60 says stephen "fell asleep in death".
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Socrateswannabe
In Acts 7:59, the Jews were casting stones at Stephen and his last words were, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
The WTS has contended that all of the ancients who died after Jesus were in a sleep-like condition, awaiting a resurrection that eventually happened in 1918-1919 (depending upon which WT reference you are looking at). And in fact, V. 60 says Stephen "fell asleep in death".
But his first utterance, asking Jesus by the way, not Jehovah, to receive his spirit, seems to indicate that he expected an instant resurrection to heaven. I don't see any explanation from the WTS regarding this scripture, or how it can be taken any other way. Admittedly, I no longer believe the bible as truth, I'm not convinced that there was a man named Stephen or that he spoke any of these words, just as most of the other bible characters were, I believe, fictional and the stories carried the agendas of those writing them. However, shouldn't this give the WTS fits? How could they possibly account for it?